Sensei IQ Finance Grid – what’s changing?

In this post:

• Your Sensei IQ Finance Grid will have a new look from April 6
• Key features and benefits of the new Finance Grid
• Preview of new features coming to the Finance Grid in the next few months
• FAQ’s
• Note – Update will comply with your existing updates/release policy
• Further Questions

This change to the Finance Grid is visual only and is designed to make it easier and clearer to use and to view the information contained within it. Your existing data will appear in the new view.

Current Finance Grid view:

Short video overview of the new Sensei IQ Finance Grid

Key features and benefits of the new Finance Grid:

1. New grid-based visualisation of project financials:
   • View the state of your project financials better with colour coding and a larger display area
   • Easily compare totals for budgets, forecasts, actuals, and variance, from anywhere in the timeline
   • Edit or enter new values by clicking on any cell in the grid
   • Fully backwards compatible with the existing finance tab

2. Ability to display budget, forecasts, actuals and variance in either column or row mode
   • Visualise your project finances in the way you prefer

3. Expanded Category hierarchy display
   • View financial entries at any category level, down to the specific item

4. View Overall or Visible period totals
   • Compare your project financials for the entire lifetime of the project, or just for the period you’re viewing

Feature removed:

1. Timeline and Key Dates view
   • As part of the new features, we have removed the timeline and key dates view from the finance tab – but don’t worry! If you like this feature, we will be replacing it under a new project dashboard view, which is currently in development.

Additional new features coming soon to Sensei IQ Finance:

The new look and feel for the Sensei IQ Finance Grid is the first step in an exciting range of new features coming into Sensei IQ Finance in the next few months, including:

1. Ability to import forecasts from resource plans or the schedule or tasks system
   • Use your project resource plan, schedule or tasks system to create labour forecast costs at the push of a button
   • Automatically synchronise changes from the resource plan, schedule or tasks system, to your project finances
2. Ability to define custom fiscal periods and view project financials by these periods
   • Align your project financials with the financial calendar your organisation uses, whether it’s based on calendar months or specific fiscal periods
3. Import personnel actuals directly from Sensei IQ Timesheets
   • Easily keep your project labour actuals up to date by integrating Sensei IQ’s Timesheets with your project finances
   • Update labour actuals from Timesheets quickly and easily
4. Excel integration
   • Easily view and edit project finances in Excel and continue to work the way you prefer
5. Inline editing
   • Edit your financial entries directly in the finance grid for easy maintenance of your project financials
6. Top-down budget allocations, or build budgets from proposal forecasts
   • Build your project budget either via a top-down allocation from the PMO, or apply for a new project budget using forecasts generated in the proposal stage
7. Generate project financial forecasts using models like linear, S-curve, or humpback
   • Adapt your forecast model to the expected consumption profile for your project
8. Ability to import actuals directly from your finance line of business system
   • Ensure your project is synchronised with your organisations financial system by directly importing budgets or actuals into project finances
   • Note: Requires integration with your Finance line of business system
9. At a glance finance overview via IQ finance dashboard
   • Visualise the state of your project financials on a single dashboard to track your estimate at completion, estimate to complete, variance, and more.
10. Roll up reporting for Programs and Portfolios
    • At a glance overview at the program or portfolio level – see how your finances are tracking across multiple projects or programs
11. Financial snapshots
    • Create a snapshot of your project financials to compare your original to your revised values

…and many more!

We’ll be in touch with further updates as the new features become available.

FAQ’s:

Q. Will the Finance Grid update comply with our organisation’s feature release set-up for Sensei IQ?

A. Yes. If you have Sensei IQ set up to automatically update with new releases, the update to the finance grid will happen as part of the April 6 release. If you manually manage your Sensei IQ releases, then the Finance Grid update will occur at the time you enable the release.

Q. Is there any change to the underlying data or set-up of the Finance Grid?

A. No. This is a visual update only, making the Finance Grid easier to use and review and will not impact on its functionality.

Q. Will I automatically see all my existing data in the new Finance Grid?

A. Yes. The new look Finance Grid is backwards compatible with the existing Finance tab in Sensei IQ and all your data will automatically be shown in the new view.

Q. Have any features in the grid changed?

A. Two features have been removed from the Finance Grid – the Timeline and Key Dates. If you like these features, we will be replacing them under a new project dashboard view, which is currently in development.

Update to comply with existing updates/release policy

Please note – your organisation can set up these regular releases to happen automatically or can manually implement them to ensure they comply with your organisation’s release policy and/or governance requirements, and the same applies to this update.

Further questions:

If you have any further questions regarding the update to the Sensei IQ Finance Grid please get in touch with Sensei Client Care through the various channels below.

1. Sensei Client Care Portal
2. 1300 SENSEI (736 734)
3. ClientCare@Sensei.Cloud